But this resulted in a request for Lata’s date and time and place of birth. Haresh’s parents were going to get her horoscope made themselves.
Haresh went to an astrologer in Calcutta with Lata’s place and date of birth, and asked him for a safe time of birth that would ensure that her stars matched his. The astrologer gave him two or three times, one of which Haresh sent on to his parents. Luckily, their astrologer worked on the same principles and calculations as his. Their anxieties were allayed.
Amit, needless to say, was disappointed, but not as much as he might have been. His novel, now that he was free from the worry of handling the Chatterji fortunes, was going well, and many more momentous events were taking place on his pages than in his life. He sank deeper into the novel, and — a little disgusted with himself for doing so — used his disappointment and sadness to portray that of a character who happened to be conveniently on hand.
He wrote a brief note, not in verse, to congratulate Lata, and tried to behave in a sportsmanlike manner. Mrs Rupa Mehra, in any case, did not allow him to behave in any other way. The Chatterji children, like the Chatterji car, were pulled into her orbit. Amit, Kuku, Dipankar and even Tapan (when he had a moment to spare from his homework at St Xavier’s) were each assigned various tasks: the making of guest lists, the selection of gifts, the collecting of items that had been ordered from the shops. Perhaps Lata had known that of the three men courting her, the only one who could be rejected without the loss of his friendship was Amit.
19.3
When Mrs Rupa Mehra told Meenakshi one afternoon to come with her to the jewellers to help her buy, or at least select, a wedding band for Haresh, Meenakshi stretched her neck lazily and said:
‘Oh, but Ma, I’m going somewhere this afternoon.’
‘But your canasta is tomorrow.’
‘Well,’ said Meenakshi with a slow and rather feline smile, ‘life is not all canasta and rummy.’
‘Where are you going?’ demanded her mother-in-law.
‘Oh, I’m going here and there,’ said Meenakshi, adding to Aparna: ‘Darling, please release my hair.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra, unaware that she had just been treated to a Kakoli-couplet, became annoyed.
‘But these are the jewellers you recommended. I will get much better service if you come with me. If you don’t come with me, I’ll have to go to Lokkhi Babu’s.’
‘Oh, no, Ma, you really shouldn’t. Go to Jauhri’s; they’re the ones who made my little gold pears.’ Meenakshi stroked her neck just below her ear with the scarlet nail of her middle finger.
This last remark infuriated Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘if that’s how much you care about your sister-in-law’s wedding, go gallivanting around town. My Varun will come with me.’
When they got to the shop, Mrs Rupa Mehra did not in the event find it difficult to charm Mr Jauhri. Within two minutes he knew all about Bentsen Pryce and the IAS and Haresh’s testimonials. When he had reassured her that he could make anything she wished and have it ready for collection in three weeks, she ordered a gold champakali necklace (‘It is so pretty with its hollow buds and not too heavy for Lata’) and a Jaipur kundan set — a necklace and earrings in glass and gold and enamel.
As Mrs Rupa Mehra chattered on happily about her daughter, Mr Jauhri, who was a sociable man, added his comments and congratulations. When she mentioned her own late husband, who had been in the railways, Mr Jauhri lamented the decline in service. After a while, when everything had been settled satisfactorily, she said that she had to be going. She got out her Mont Blanc pen and wrote down her name and address and telephone number.
Mr Jauhri looked startled.
‘Ah,’ he said, recognizing the surname and address.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, ‘my daughter-in-law has been here before.’
‘Mrs Mehra — was it your husband’s medal she gave me to have made into her chain and earrings? Beautiful — just like little pears?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra, fighting to keep back her tears. ‘I will come back in three weeks. Please treat the order as urgent.’
Mr Jauhri said: ‘Madam, let me check with my calendar and orders. Maybe I can give them to you in two and a half weeks.’ He disappeared into the back of the shop. When he returned he placed a small red box on the counter and opened it.
Inside, sitting on a cushion of white silk, was Raghubir Mehra’s gold medal for Engineering.
19.4
Twice that month did Mrs Rupa Mehra shuttle between Calcutta and Brahmpur.
She was so delighted to have the medal restored to her (‘The fact is, Madam, I could not bear to melt it down.’) that she bought it back instantly, drawing out whatever was necessary from her savings, and trying to economize slightly more on the necessary wedding expenses. She was — for a few days at least — entirely reconciled to Meenakshi and her ways. For if Meenakshi had not given Mr Jauhri this medal, it would have been stolen from the house in Sunny Park with the rest of the jewellery, and, like the Physics medal, would have vanished for good. Meenakshi too, when she got back from wherever it was she had been, looked happy and satisfied and was quite pleasant to her mother-in-law and Varun. When she heard about the medal she was not slow in claiming a perverse credit for events — and her mother-in-law did not object.
When Mrs Rupa Mehra got to Brahmpur she brought the medal with her and showed it triumphantly to everyone in the family, and everyone was delighted with her good fortune.
‘You must study hard, Lata, there are so few days left’—Mrs Rupa Mehra cautioned her daughter—‘or you will never have your Daddy’s academic success. You should not let your wedding and other things distract you.’ And with that she put Ideal Marriage, carefully wrapped in the bridal colours of red and gold, into her hands.
‘This book will teach you everything — about Men,’ she said, lowering her voice for some reason. ‘Even our Sita and Savitri had to have these experiences.’
‘Thank you, Ma,’ said Lata, a little apprehensively.
Mrs Rupa Mehra was suddenly embarrassed, and disappeared into the next room with the excuse that she had to phone her father.
Lata promptly unwrapped the package and, forgetting her studies, began to look through the Dutch sexologist’s advice. She was as much repelled as fascinated by what he had to offer.
There were numerous graphs describing the man’s and the woman’s degrees of excitement under different circumstances, for example, coitus interruptus and what the author called ‘Ideal Communion’. There were multicoloured, copiously labelled, not very appealing cross-sections of various organs. ‘Marriage is a science. (H. de Balzac)’ read the epigraph of the book, and Dr Van de Velde evidently took this aphorism seriously not only in his illustrations but also in his taxonomy. He divided what he shyly called his ‘Synousiology’ into converse and averse types, and further divided these into the habitual or medial attitude, the first attitude of extension, the second attitude of extension (suspensory), the attitudes of flexion (favoured, according to him, by the Chinese), the attitude of equitation (in which Martial described Hector and Andromache), the sedentary attitude, the anterior-lateral attitude, the ventral attitude, the posterior-lateral attitude, the attitude of averse flexion, and the posterior-sedentary attitude. Lata was amazed by the possibilities: she had only thought of one. (Indeed, even Malati had only ever mentioned one.) She wondered what the nuns at St Sophia’s would think of a book like this.